Oceans Seven in a year?

With Anna-Carin Nordin just crossing the Cook St and one swim short of the big 7, I was wondering when are we going to see a swimmer to do them all in one year? Stephen has lead the way and now we see a bunch of great swimmers near that goal. Some aim to do it with a clean sheet - i.e. 7 successful swims in 7 attempts - and surely future swimmers will try to "outdo" those past achievements in one way or the other. Like doing it in one year...any thoughts on how difficult it would be (assuming no budget constraints...)?

Comments

If I had a million dollars and didn't have to work.... And still, you'd have to depend on luck an awful lot. Some people wait all summer for a good day to swim many of those on the list. There is such a relatively short window for a few of those swims that you'd literally have to be able to camp out somewhere in the middle and then be there in a few hours if the weather was a go. I also think your arms might fall off.....

The year would start off with the Cook Strait being done in February or March, with time to relax before the Strait of Gibraltar in early May. The Tsugaru Channel and the Catalina Channel could be pulled off in July. The hardest push in the grouping would be the North Channel and English Channel in back to back months. If you are lucky enough to have good weather for those two, then you would have a nice break before having to pull off the mighty Molokai Channel in November, or even in December. This would be my best guess as to how someone could pull off the 'Oceans Seven' in one calendar year.

Surely the quickest way to do them would be to start at the toughest. The clock would start ticking from that swim. If it were the north channel, you could do the EC the following week. Surely from there it would be better to quickly knock off the easier swims. Then you have time to wait for the other swims that have awkward tides or short windows.